[Frozen Synapse] tactical simultaneous turn-based squad

[Kasey Chang]

Donated 7.50 (2.50 for myself, 5 for the full bundle for a friend), and got Frozen Synapse. It's like playing... That ANCIENT CompuServe game... WW2 Soldiers or something that like? That's what it felt like. It also reminds me a lot of Silent Storm in a certain way, except this has more finer tactical options, but is 2D only.

As the video shows, there's green (you) and red (hostiles). You have a few variety of units, starting with just MG (technically assault rifle) and Shotgun. Later you get sniper, rocket, grenade, and so on.

The game works on simultaneous turn-based moves. You define your moves, they define their moves, and both are run together with the computer running referee.

You can define moves of your units, and you can "test" each move and show how far it can go. Double click to make a "waypoint". AI will add more if you want the unit to go around walls and doors and such.

At each waypoint, you can add delay (such as wait for X amount of seconds), look / aim in a certain direction, IGNORE / UNIGNORE a target, duck / stand (behind a half-height obstacle such as table / ledge), and so on.

The idea is setup "ambushes" in the way of AI units so you ambush them without getting your own units in harms way. It's not easy as the AI doesn't always move in the way you think, and the ambush you set up may be in the wrong direction, and so on. Line of sight is also extremely important, as are ranges of your weapons, and "surprise", as enemy looking one way will be surprised when you attack in a different direction.

There is online play, skirmish against AI, or play a "campaign" which are a series of mission (all with randomly generated maps of equivalent difficulty) that goes through a story about a future where "shapes" (I.e. AI entities) control "vatforms" (clones) in a war of sabotage, espionage, VIP escort, and more.

I've gone about 3 missions in, and it's interesting thus far.

[Kasey Chang]

The fifth mission gets absolutely ridiculous.

You're supposed to assassinate this guy in a "computer room", and it's defended by like 8 soldiers, 2 of them holding RPG launchers. You just have 3 guys with MG and 1 shotgun. And you have to kill the guy in 8 turns.

the AI is merciless as they just shoot an RPG in your general direction even if they can't see you, and the proximity blast kills you just as dead. Once I thought I got two guys close enough to shoot the guy on turn 8. When turn 8 came along, the trailing guy was shot by a guard that JUST made it around the corner, and the guy in front had no target because the target had moved out of view.

I'm going to try again, but this mission is getting ridiculous.

[Kasey Chang]

Finally got past that mission, but it's more on luck than good tactics.

One of their RPG shooter is to the northeast inside the server room, and the other is to the east just north of my "target". I have 5 units available, 4 south and 1 north.

I sent in the north guy to flank the RPG guy. He's mostly decoy. The southern team goes "ignore if enemy sighted" and runs for the exit and spread out.

Next turn, my nominal allies, who *does* have an RPG launcher, blast the walls in front of my guys open, just as they almost reach cover. They engage the three hostiles in front of them.

Their RPG shooters then started an RPG duel with the "allied" RPG guy. One of their hostiles took out TWO of my 4 southern team but he's stuck in a room. The third guy went down from return fire from the three in front, but the fourth guy is finally clear to engage the hostile VIP.

On Turn 4 my guy run into the room and put a bullet into the hostile VIP's head. End game!

[Stefan Stirzaker]

Up to mission 11 I think now. 5 snipers in a church and 3 shottie and 2 yellow AR's, gonna be tough.

[Grifman]

You're late:

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=71986&hilit=frozen+synapse" target="_blank

[Kasey Chang]

Kept playing, and just finished the 2nd "operation", hacking the TV station. The third mission interesting, as they have RPG, and I got just a grenade thrower and sniper. The grenade moves so slowly you can ALMOST outrun the blast. You have to bounce it off walls and ANTICIPATE where the enemy will be to get them to do damage.

You pretty much have to move the sniper so he takes out the RPG guy first. THEN you can hunt the rest at your leisure.

And beware of doorways. Once I tried to shoot it through a door. It bounced off the edge, and I fragged myself. Fortunately, enemy is down to one guy, and I got him surrounded already. he died on turn 14, and I got all the stuff and left by turn 15.

[Kasey Chang]

Up to mission 11 I think now. 5 snipers in a church and 3 shottie and 2 yellow AR's, gonna be tough.

Just finished that one. The 2 yellow MGs just walk forward, shoot at any snipers they see, then go after the civilians. The snipers somehow only come after your folks instead of trying to save their bretheren. The AI's screwy. Had to redo about 4-5 times.

Started the mission... all three guys "do not engage" and walk as fast as possible under cover and spread east and west for the edges. Once they got there, they try to go north, stay under cover, careful NOT to get exposed to cross-church sniper fire. Once I had one guy hoping to ambush one of the snipers, only to fall victim to a shot fired from ACROSS the church on the other side, through three different windows.

Once they get close enough, it's a matter of setting ambushes for the snipers. If they snipers won't come out and play, you'll have to flush them. The idea is to get them to commit on one side, then you use the other guy to flank. This of course, require 2 guys.

[Kasey Chang]

Next mission is a doozy, as they introduced... tripwires.

Basically, I need to get into the enemy room, and in my way are the tripwires (all mined) and about 6 guards.

This one depends on the starting position. A good start means all the hostiles are north of the map (you can deactivate the tripwires go hitting a zone to the southeast). Your target is to the northeast.

I have 2 MG and 1 SG (MG is machine gun, SG is shotgun). I decided to set all three to do not engage, and have them run for cover watching for the sightlines. I use the "run-through" feature to make sure none will get stuck in the open and adjust path accordingly. Two went east, one went northeast trying to get the guard that's to north.

The guard to north manage to catch one of my guys going east in the open, but my shotgun guy got him with a flank shot. So we go for a pincer, one go east to deactivate the tripwires, while the other go east / northeast and stay in cover to get the other two guards.

My shotgun guy caught two guys walking around a corner, while the MG guy got to the zone and deactivated the tripwires, then headed north to setup a pincer. Only 2 hostiles left.

Next turn, my guy successfully reached the wall next to the 2 hostiles, but could not get any closer. Time to use the other guy as distraction. I moved the guy so he's briefly in view of the hostiles, and this got their attention. I set the closer guy on a time delay (to make sure the other guy was seen), change aim direction, then walk around the corner and pumped 2 shotgun blast into their backs at point blank range.

Voila, victory!

TACTICAL TIPS:

* watch for the sightlines. You can "draw lines* from the hostile vatform through a window or such to see if they can see your unit. Obviously this doesn't take into account their movement, but it helps when snipers are around, but sometimes, even regular MG shooters can kill you from half a map away.

* there are two ways to defend against RPG... a) stay away from the walls, else you get hit by proximity blast, and b) keep TWO walls between you and the shooter, beware of small gaps they can shoot through, and you may be suddenly exposed when the blast took down a wall c) move laterally, as the guy shoots at your "last reported location". It doesn't "lead" you when targeting. So don't stay still and give it an easier target.

* NEVER move into an enemy's view when the gun is already toward your unit. It's certain death to your unit. Instead, attempt to flank, or show it a target out of its weapons range to force it to turn away.

[Kasey Chang]

Next 3 missions, defending the Panarchs from Enyo:Nomad, isn't actually that hard. What I thought was the most difficult, the "attack the enemy RPG nest", turned out to be actually the easiest, as I did it without a single restart. In the mission before that, I basically sacrificed my southern units so the northern lone guy can run for the control zone in the middle.

"Get to the Control Zone"

There's a red control zone in the middle I have to get into in a few turns. Basically the southern units attack what they can, hide in corner, while the northern unit turn around and started shooting into the open door at the 2 guards inside.

Next turn, I lost one guy in the south, but the northern guy killed one of the guards inside. The other just ran out the southern door.

Next turn, more of my southern guys died (ambushed from behind when enemies flanked them) but the northern guy is almost in.

The northern guy reached the zone, crouched, and the mission ends.

"RPG Nest"

The mission was to grab 3 shapes and run for the border. In your way: RPG bunkers and like 10 enemy nits. . I have shotgun, MG, RPG, and sniper.

Sniper runs to right and try to engage the RPG guy to the right. MG gun tries to stay in cover among the cubicles. Shotgun just run for the corner. RPG starts shooting at the RPG nests and go for proximity kills.

The RPG guy was able to score MANY kills, and the sniper was able to get to the RPG next kill swtich. Unfortunately, the colleteral damage killed my shotgun guy, my MG guy died earlier in another exchange of fire, and that leaves my sniper against 2 MG guys.

By carefully moving the sniper, the MG guys are taken care of, and the sniper runs for the shapes and exits the map.

Tactics Tips:

1) To defend against the RPG, you *have* to stand in the open, so the RPG fly right PAST you, and not hit anything (and kill you by proximity blast).

2) Standing in the open makes you vulnerable to regular MG, grenade, and sniper, though grenade generally have lousy range. That leaves MG and sniper.

3) Attacking is VERY difficult without heavy weapons, as enemy always have the advantage over you. You have to distract them and/or blast them to make it through.

4) To attack with RPG, pick a spot where you think the enemy unit may walk near, and MOVE after shooting!

[Kasey Chang]

Finished the next set of missions dealing with the Nins and the Enyo:Nomad attack on them. Two mission are notable: one's "attack RPG nest part 2", and the other is "escort Nix across the map".

Attack RPG Next Part 2

4 RPG guys, 2 MG, and 1 Shotgun defend this central "control zone", and you have only 2 MG 1 shotgun to get one of your guys, ANY, into the zone. You have 15 turns.

The map's way too congested, and those RPG guys like to fire in salvos, so even two walls is not enough protection. So the first plan is to simply circle the map in "do not engage" mode, and let them shoot RPgs all over the place and open up the map. THEN it's a matter of trying my luck.

The result is one guy got caught by proximity blast. The other two went for the entrances, one north, one south. The northern guy was shot by one of the MG guards (just made it around the corner). The southern guy shot two RPG guys and just barely got inside before end of turn, which means a win for me. (The next turn he's shot by the guard, but I already "won").

Escort Nix

Nix needs to walk across this map, and I have 1 sniper, 1 mg, and 1 shotgun to escort him with.

In the beginning, only 1 enemy shotgun to the north, so I send in the MG and wait for it to emerge for a standard corner "ambush". Sniper just runs up the middle, no target expect, just run. Shotgun parallel the track to the south.

Next turn, enemy shotgun moved up into range, and my MG was in position. Enemy MG appeared to south.

Next turn, enemy shotgun to north was killed by my MG ambush. My shotgun guy just got into position to ambush the enemy MG. Sniper continue advance up the middle.

Enemy sniper appeared in northeast corner. Sniper went southeast in case there's enemy popping up there. Shotgun go for window to allow him a shot to the sniper from the flank, while MG dashed to the wall around the corner from sniper.

Next turn, shotgun moved up to window, enemy sniper have moved... right into the sights of my MG who just sidestrafed from the corner. Blam! All hostiles down.

Two turns later, Nix exits the map. Victory!

Tactical tips:

* On those "control zone" missions, kamikaze run is still effective, if you can get close enough.

* Use the enemy units and check their aimline just as you would adjust your own units' aim line. That'll show you how he'll shoot through windows

[Kasey Chang]

Argh! The Defend Ninstar Level 2 mission is kicking my rear end.

The set is I have 2 shotgun, 1 MG, and 2 RPG to defend this "elevator" from E:N forces. They have snipers, lots of MGs and shotguns, but no RPG or grenade. Offices block the rest of the map, which is semi-sparse.

The problem with this map is with ONE MG, RPG use (open up wall so your MG can shoot the guys beyond it) doesn't work that well, and it sort of opens you to sniper shots.

The closest I've gotten is one I'm like down to turn eight. I got 4 of my guys left (a shotgun got killed early on in long-range shot) but my MG guy took out a sniper that killed the shotgun guy. Then the MG and shotgun was able to ambush the rest, and my RPG guy was able to hit a few guys. EN forces are down to 1 sniper (who's at map's edge) and one shotgun guy.

Except this shotgun guy is like the Terminator.

RPG guy fires, except this shotgun guy walked right PAST the explosion, and blasted the RPG guy in the face. I sent down a shotgun guy from the north, except this shotgun guy is so fast he walked right past my guy and my guy didn't even get a shot. My MG guy is defending the doorway, and just killed an EN MG guy. This shotgun guy is about to walk into the zone of fire.

So my MG guy takes a knee, readies at the door, while my shotgun guy runs inside and tries to setup behind a "desk".

Start turn. The enemy shotgun guy walks up to the door, and shot my MG guy who's pointing right at the door. He walks in and blasts my shotgun guy charging in around the corner.

YOU LOSE

[Stefan Stirzaker]

Gets more interesting later on, in one of the later section after the early area (Novena I think I'm in now) the fog of war is on from the start, makes shoot and scoot much more interesting!

[Hipolito]

I finally tried this game, but it was only a half-hearted attempt. I got through the tutorial and the first part of the first mission, and that's it. The tutorial goes through too many concepts without giving me enough opportunity to play around with them. The campaign difficulty ramps up quickly. I could have tried harder and made more progress, but going by Kasey's posts, the game probably would have gotten way too hard for me.

So, I'm scratching this. It's cool game that had a following, so it's weird that no one's talking about it or anything similar as far as I'm aware.